you've got one place to fall
by 1oooyears
Summary: One day, Caroline meets a man with an educated voice and these cold eyes and he'll tell her that he's old, older than her mom, and that she may never understand that. / Caroline Forbes is a very special girl. - carolijah, steroline if you squint.


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(_**A/N: i don't own vampire diaries, as much as i want to, is don't)**_

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One day, Caroline meets a man with an educated voice and these cold eyes (_but this'll be an erratic meeting she'll never remember until she's this thing that kills people and bunnies and loses someone weekly) and _he'll tell her that he's _old, _older than her _mom, _and that she may never understand that. In return she shakes her head and tells him to _smile._ He makes a face that resembles that of a clown and giggling she tells him, _that he's smiling _**_wrong. _**And then he gets this look in his eyes and carefully explains that girls like Caroline have to be careful, because not every stranger is as nice as him and that her mother must be worried _sick._ She shakes her head, and giggles again. Her mother won't _care. _She's just this painful little ache in her side thats taking up her money and her food, and he gets this funny look once more and he asks her; _Where did you get that idea?_

So she tells him, her mother works and nothing more, and that after her daddy left to be with his new family thats all her mother has ever done.

_Caroline, _he says, _I think your mother cares a lot more than you think, _she looks at him puzzled. _I've had a mother who did this _**_awful thing _**_to my family, but in the end she did it out of desperation, and love, and I regret that I hadn't seen this sooner, because she's gone and I don't ever want you to do the same thing. _She nods, happily, and then she falls over, and _ouchouchouch, is that blood?_

And his face does this _other _funny things and for a second there are veins where there shouldn't be veins and then they're gone, so she blinks and asks him if she'll have a face like that one day, and he shakes his head. _No, Caroline, you won't, at least, _he pauses stepping backward and out of crouch, _I sincerely hope not. _

He looks her up and down before picking her up and asking her where her mother is.

In the candy isle, he gently drops Caroline and his eyes go _funny _and all-

_"Caroline," _his voice is heavy and echoey in her mind, "_you will forget about me, you ran away from your mother because you saw something shiny, and you never saw me, never heard me, but," _he pauses as she nods because he hates compelling people, children nonetheless, "_you will always be there for your mother, and you will never ever doubt that you are loved."_

He stands, "goodbye, Caroline." He vanishes.

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_"I'm never the one." _She says and Bonnie says, _no car, it's just, Stefan isn't your type he's too frowny and broody and your- _she stops listening because she _what?_ _Oh yeah, she's not _**_Elena, _**_and it sucks. _But then she gets this feeling that _someone _out there _does _cares about her and that she _does _matter and that she _is_ important_, _that she _isn't_ Elena's shadow, _never has been. _

So when Damon Salvatore smiles and winks and _Salvatore as in saviour, _she doesn't _blink._

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She turns into a vampire, and her body _expects _something to be back, but it isn't, and it's the same feeling she gets as she has these flashes of _bloodsexblondiei'msorrynoyellowgonnakillyoubi tebite_**_biteme, _**but it never happens, and when she tells Stefan he's just as confused as she is, (he doesn't admit that he has a similar feeling about his ripper days, but that'll come later) so she decides, _that, well, i'm going to be freak of a vampire too._

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Theres this man, an_ original _vampire. _Elijah, _Elena corrects. _Threat, _Damon responds.

"_He can compel vampires," _and Stefan gives her this look, and then it clicks. So she's not a _freak, _she's a _victim_, of an original vampire, who probably fed off of her _as a human. _

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She still feels as is someone out there loves her, and she wonders if her subconscious misses her father.

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"Hello miss-?"

"Are you the original vampire?!" She asks, hands waving in the air, curls flailing in the wind, _because she is pissed._

_"Well, yes. Caroline, I assume?" _He blinks because she is taller, and _older _and _attractive _and whatever happened to her smiles and candy corn pigtails?

_I will not be charmed away! _Is all she can think,_ "_I've been compelled, and since only _originals _can do that, I am going to assume you know how to fix it?" She looks at him furry eyebrows doubled by these impossible lines on her forehead that trouble him because he _knows _they'll never be permanent.

_"Well yes," _He grabs her forehead, looks her in the eyes, "you will remember."

And then he slams the door in her face, the neighbouring apartment stumbling out of their doors in response, and she can do nothing but _scowl, _because she doesn't think it'll be okay if she rips the door off of it's hinges.

_He will pay! _She shakes her hand in anger.

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She sits in bed as the memory returns and she picks at it with every grain of concentration she has.

_"You will never ever doubt that you are loved."_

It seems she's booked that plane ticket for nothing, her father is busy anyway.

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She pulls him aside one day and asks him, "why did you do it?"

He shrugs, eyes falling to exotic carpet before looking at her, brown on blue.

"We've all been children, once."

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Once more she lies awake and thinks about this man who saves her from the werewolves and saves her as a child, and in the end she falls asleep thinking of a time when _Elijah, original vampire, _was human, and about his mother who must've turned them into vampires, but, what confuses her is how she always sees him with _Elena or Katherine, _because _Elena isn't that old, _and _neither is Katherine, _but these are dreams, _so who cares?_

And from time to time, he'll watch as she and Elena go throughout their homework before scheming.

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One day, Caroline opens her door and there is a fancy rose, with a fancy note and she almost passes out. The card plummets to the ground in shock.

_Miss Forbes, would you meet me for coffee?_

_- Elijah Mikaelson._

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She purses her lips before placing the note on his door.

_12o'clock, any later and I barricade my door._

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When he's sure she's gone, he giggles like a school girl because she says yes, _rather bossily, _but yes, all the same.

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They have a small lunch, and although it is not needed, Caroline feels she'll be much more comfortable stuffing her face with food rather than her foot.

"Sooo, seen any good movies?"

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And you know, they kind of develop this fairytale cliche thing, and then well, he temporarily dies, and she brings him back to life, and what can she say, it ends kind of happily?

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_(and his brother develops this weird crush on her and… well, lets just keep that between us, shall we?)_

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